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Friday, May 17, 2013

***Resolved*** Intermittent Network Issues Reported

WHAT: At approximately 3pm the Help Desk began to receive reports of issues with network connectivity in various buildings across campus.

WHEN: 05/17/13

WHERE: All personal devices (laptops, phones using wireless, game stations) will be affected as well as most Academic spaces (library, labs, classrooms)

Current Status: Resolved

Description:Resolution: 8:50 PM: The internet service provider has isolated an issue that was causing service interruptions throughout the region.

Update: 4:30 pm: The network connectivity issues have improved, but there is still an issue being dealt with by one of our Internet Service Providers (ISP). Users may experience momentary interruptions throughout the evening as the ISP works to resolve the issue in full.

If conditions worsen, please contact the Help Desk immediately at 253-535-7525.

Update 3:39 pm: We have narrowed down the connection issue to a problem with one of our campus Internet connections. Networking is currently working with the Service Provider to identify the issue and is working towards a solution as quickly as possible. We will provide continual updates on this issue as more information arrives.

Original Message: At approximate 3 pm today, the Help Desk began receiving reports of network interruptions from various buildings on campus. Networking was alerted and is currently investigating these issues.

Users who are experiencing network issues are advised to contact the Help Desk at 253-535-7525. Please report:

Current location

Whether you are connecting wirelessly or wired

We will continue to investigate the issue and post an update at this time.

Service(s) Impacted:Campus Network

Estimated Time to Resolution or Next Update: 4:30 pm

Root Cause / Continuous Improvement:

The issue experienced on Friday was the result of a problem with one of our Internet Service Providers. At approximately 3 pm on Friday, the Help Desk along with Networking began to investigate issues with Internet connectivity as we received reports from around campus. After determining that the issue was likely not with any PLU equipment, we proceeded to contact the ISP which handled the connections being affected. During out communication with the ISP, a stop-gap was put in place to resolve the majority of issues with connectivity, and we declared the issue resolved at that time.

For any possible future events, we will do our best to improve our response speed to network connectivity issues. The Help Desk was grateful for all callers who assisted by providing us with the requested information. For future network issues, we will continue to use the PLUHelpDesk Twitter account as a primary means of communication. (As normal network communication may not be possible). We strongly advise that users subscribe to our Twitter feed. Subscribing is simple and does not require a Twitter account. This account is for informational posts only and will not post any non-status related updates.

Additional Info: Our ISP informed us that the issue was the result of a configuration issue which resulted in what is known as a broadcast storm
(wikipedia). This resulted in a 55 minute outage. The ISP is working
to update and improve the broadcast storm detection tools and to
investigate why the error was not reported quicker.